Norwegian last names: fun facts

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:47

"What's in my name to you?" - a famous phrase from a poem by A. S. Pushkin. True, he answered this question very modestly, assuming that sooner or later it would die, be forgotten, like "the sound of the night in a deaf forest." But, fortunately, the Russian classic was mistaken. And about myself, and about the concept of “name” in general, since a lot is hidden in it. What exactly? Beautiful Norwegian surnames and names will tell us about this and not only.

National characteristic

A. P. has Chekhov's wonderful phrase that they have not yet invented such an object that would not be suitable for a Jewish surname. Well, Anton Pavlovich, as always, is ironic and precise! But seriously speaking, any name or surname is directly related to nationality. Indeed, by naming a child by the name of his people, the parent, as it were, passes on to him a national gene that will connect him not only with his close ancestors, but also with the whole people, its history and culture. That's probably whyFifty percent of Norwegian citizens have traditional Norwegian names, and the other half have common European ones. The latter are usually borrowed from the church calendar.

Meaning

Each name, surname has its own meaning. With what or with whom are Norwegian surnames connected? In ancient times, many peoples did not distinguish between a nickname and the name itself. The ancient Scandinavians, who at that time inhabited the territory of modern Norway, were no exception. Over time, people stopped using nicknames like "Evil Eye", "Bull Bone", "Wolf Mouth" and so on. However, this trend cannot be said to have completely disappeared.

For example, many modern Norwegian surnames and names are associated with animal totems:

• Bjørn – bear;
• Bernhard - brave bear;
• Bjørgulv - a combination of two words bjarga - protect, keep and úlfr - wolf;
• Chickadee - tit;
• Olv - wolf;
• Svane - swan.

It is impossible not to mention the surnames formed on the basis of nicknames and associated with the surrounding nature:

• Wind - wind;
• Blizzard - blizzard;
• Spruce - spruce and many others.

And, finally, no less numerous group consists of Norwegian names denoting a person's occupations, personal characteristics:

• Stian - traveler, wanderer;
• Helge - sacred, holy;
• Henrik - powerful, leader, ruler;
• Olve - lucky, happy;
• Ottar - warrior, protector, inspiringfear, horror;
• Bodvar - vigilant, cautious warrior;
• Boye - messenger, messenger and others.

National Domain

It is interesting to note that until the beginning of the twentieth century, most Scandinavians did not have surnames at all. Instead, patronymics were used. That is why many Norwegian surnames (male) end in son, sen, which literally means “son”. For example, among the most common you can find options such as:

• Hansen – son of Hans;
• Karlsen - Karl's son;
• Larsen - son of Lars and others.

As for women, the ending is the word datter - daughter. For example, female Norwegian surnames might be:

• Anderdatter - Andre's daughter;
• Johandatter- daughter of Johan;
• Jendatter - Ian's daughter and many others.

Another feature of the names of the natives of Norway is that they can consist of two or more words. The second part is, as a rule, such lexical units as:

• bunn – bottom;
• felt – field;
• hennes mann - her husband;
• rock - rock, stone;
• skog - forest;
• master - master.

Here we can say that all of the above surnames have a so-called national domain - something that helps to determine which people, nation a particular person comes from.

Translation

As a rule, proper names cannot be translated. Their transition fromone language into another occurs through transcription or transliteration, that is, through copying the pronunciation or spelling of the name.

How to correctly convey Norwegian surnames and names in Cyrillic? The question is very difficult. Why? A feature of the Norwegian language is the presence of its two official variants. The first is Bokmål, which literally means “book speech”. And the second - Nynorsk or Nyunoksh - is a New Norwegian language. The latter arose as a true Norwegian alternative to Bokmål, which was formed on the basis of the Danish language after four centuries of Danish rule in Norway. However, the so-called Danish-Norwegian language is more popular among the population. It is spoken by about 90 percent of the inhabitants. All central mass media are printed on it. In addition to this official pair of languages, there are many more dialects.

From here, almost every Norwegian traveling through the pages of the Russian press immediately acquires two portraits. For example, Olav can be both Olaf and Olaf; Anders is called both Anders and Andesh; Eirik turns out to be both Eirik and Eirik. And these are not isolated cases.